Real Time Flaw Detection – LG Display

LG Display switched from Oracle to Altibase for its real time flaw detection systems, resulting in 50% reduction in product loss and CPU resources.

Use Case: Real Time Flaw Detection and Management

Current Customers: LG DISPLAY

Industry: Manufacturing

Who

LG Display is the world’s largest LCD panel producer.

Problem

LG Display suffered from inadequate quality control. Its inability to track defects and change requirements in real time was at the core. Data stored on multiple DMBSs perpetuated LG Display’s incapacity to monitor and react to the issues of lower yield and leading to high scrap. Limited to tracking only lots, the automated system could not exploit the invaluable effects of pinpointing per unit.[1]

Solution

LG Display adopted Altibase in 2008.[2] Since then, Altibase with its hybrid architecture has been deployed to capture defect data immediately and continuously.[3] The quality control personnel could identify and remedy defects at the point and time of occurrence.[4]

Technical Details – Real Time Flaw Detection

LG Display has achieved outstanding results with its new advanced LCD processing control system by leveraging key features of Altibase’s hybrid architecture, specifically in the areas of high performance, HA and storage flexibility.

High Performance, Storage Flexibility and HA

Before LG Display implemented Altibase, each manufacturing process was managed by a dedicated, legacy on-disk DBMS. LG Display desired to manage all manufacturing processes by using a single DBMS for more efficient administration of monitoring systems and to have an integrated view of all manufacturing processes. However, the idea of a centralized DBMS system was not possible due to poor performance of its legacy DBMS. LG Display’s performance requirements of 5,800 TPS for INSERT statements and 2,100 records/hour for data migration were not met by its legacy DBMS.

Besides the performance issues, the need to maintain a dedicated DBMS for each manufacturing process created major challenges in the areas of application development and maintenance, as well as database administration and tuning. The developers had to deal with an extremely complex application infrastructure. The database administrators had a difficult job of administering a large number of DBMSs for software updates and data integration tasks. The challenging administration tasks also resulted in numerous unplanned and planned system outages.

Altibase allowed LG Display to consolidate all existing DBMSs into a single, high performing DBMS to monitor all manufacturing processes in real time. Taking advantage of both the unique hybrid architecture and the built-in replication feature, LG Display implemented Altibase based on a 2-node, active-active architecture.

This architecture was the perfect fit for eliminating performance, administration and reliability issues of LG Display’s legacy systems. Altibase’s in-memory feature delivered extreme speed for real time monitoring of all manufacturing processes by delivering 50,000 TPS performance for INSERT statements. Altibase’s on-disk feature was used as the repository for 12-hour and older manufacturing process data. Migrating data from memory tables to disk tables was a simple task attributable to Altibase’s unique MOVE SQL statement. With the MOVE statement, LG Display was able to migrate data from memory tables to disk tables at a 10,000 TPS performance.

Active-active HA architecture was realized using the built-in replication feature. LG Display utilized Altibase’s synchronous replication in a shared-nothing configuration with a zero downtime topology. With the new architecture, day-to-day tasks for both application developers and database administrators were greatly simplified.

[1] The ability to detect even the slightest flaw in a single plate or deposited layer is vital to the quality control process.